The average life expectancy for Indigenous women is just 75.6 years of age, compared to 83.4 years for non-Indigenous women.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Indigenous women are more than 10 times as likely as non-Indigenous women to have kidney disease; more than four times as likely to have diabetes/high sugar levels; and are nearly twice as likely to have asthma.
They are four times more likely to die from cervical cancer.
And then, there are the extreme rates of Acute Rheumatic Fever (ARF).
ARF is the autoimmune response to a Strep infection, and several bouts of it commonly causes Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) where damage to the heart valves can occur, often leading to heart failure, stroke or death.
Betty Booth was just one young woman from Doomadgee who tragically lost her life to the disease. After being diagnosed with the RHD, notes were left on Betty’s medical file that she should be scheduled for urgent heart valve surgery, and her case be reviewed weekly.
It didn’t happen.
Instead, she was sent away with Panadol.
Betty’s cousin, Marilyn Haala told Four Corners, “Because they said, ‘Oh, that’s another blackfella gone. Who cares? Not gonna waste time…They didn’t care. I’m not ashamed of saying that. We feel like they treat us like animals”.
Adele Sandy also suffered from RHD. In May 2020, the 37-year-old mum of three repeatedly presented to Doomadgee Hospital with serious symptoms. Repeatedly, she was dismissed with pain relief tablets.
By the time she was finally admitted, she was in heart failure.
Adele’s mother, Eunice Diamond told Four Corners, “I felt like an animal, hanging around the door, for my daughter. I was like the horse that come hanging round the door for my foal. And they wouldn’t let me in there.”
And then, a police officer came out to deliver the news: Adele had died.